The "Padma Purana" [**] thus concludes this story: "Unable therefore to approach or behold it, they determined to apply to Siva for relief. Being propitiated by them, Siva granted their request, and proceeded with them to where Brahma remained inflated with pride. On seeing Siva, Brahma did not pay him the customary honours. Siva, seeing Brahma's fifth head inflicting distress on the universe by its effulgent beams, brighter than a thousand suns, approached him and said, 'Oh! this head shines with too much splendour,' and immediately cut it off with the nail of his left thumb, with as much ease as a man cuts off the stem of a plantain tree."

The Mahabharata says that Siva did not actually cut off Brahma's head on this occasion, but was only prevented from doing so through the intercession of the gods. It was because of his attempting to seduce his own daughter that Siva decapitated him. This crime was attempted when in a fit of intoxication; hence Brahma pronounced a curse upon the gods who should hereafter drink spirits.

In the passages just quoted, Brahma is represented as worshipping Siva for his own personal benefit; in the Vishnu Purana," [*+] he is described as joining with gods and men in the worship of this same deity, and as officiating as priest on that occasion. And in another part of the Purana [*++] is the following hymn addressed to Vishnu by Brahma:--"Thou art the common centre of all, the protector of the world, and all things exist in thee. All that has been, or will be, thou art. There is nothing else but thee, O lord; nothing else has been, or will be. Thou art independent, and without beginning." The object of this laudation was to induce

[paragraph continues] Vishnu to save the earth from its load of sorrow; in answer to it, Vishnu appeared here as Krishna.

At the present time Brahma is not largely worshipped by the Hindus. "The Brahmans in their morning and evening worship repeat an incantation containing a description of the image of Brahma; at noon they present to him a single flower; at the time of burnt-offering, ghi is presented to him. In the month of Magh, at the full moon, an earthen image of him is worshipped, with that of Siva on his right hand, and Vishnu on his left." [**] Brahma as Creator is supposed to have finished his work; hence, excepting in one place, viz. at Pushkara in Ajmir, there is no temple to him now existing. It is evident that for centuries the worship of Brahma has not been common, for in the "Skanda Purana " [*+] is an indelicate legend, in which the charge of falsehood is proved against him, and this fact is given to account for the fact that his worship had ceased. It concludes as follows:--"Since thou hast childishly and with weak understanding asserted a falsehood, let no one henceforth perform worship to thee."